Most of the avalanches we've seen over the past few days have been soft slab avalanches failing on a persistent weak layer on the Northern end of the compass. With every bump in wind speed and or new snowfall event added to our fragile snowpack, we continue to wait for the weak facets to become unglued. This morning we added two huge new stressors to this fragile snowpack in the form of new snowfall and elevated winds. We don't know if this is the tipping point that will cause the snowpack to become unglued, but we do know that the avalanche danger and likelihood of avalanches will be on the rise.

The winds have been cranking all week, and continue to remain elevated. Hidden Peak is gusting above 70 mph this morning. High winds in combination with the new snow will continue to form both soft and hard slabs at all mid and upper elevations. As the winds continue to blow, these slabs will become more firm and cohesive. This can allow you to travel out farther onto the slope before it breaks, and can fail larger and wider than expected. Look for any signs of wind drifted snow on all mid and upper elevation terrain features that snow could be easily deposited, such as ridgelines and gullies.

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High winds can deposit snow on all aspects but give west through north through east extra caution, as triggering an avalanche that initially fails in the wind-drifted snow will likely break down more deeply into the weak faceted snow below.

This morning the Wasatch mountains have already received 10-19" of new snow. While snow totals are important, what we truly pay attention to is what RATE that snowfalls and how quickly it loads the snowpack. We call this precipitation intensity, and if those rates stay elevated or increase throughout the morning we could see new snow avalanches occurring naturally. Keep an eye on the sky, if the snow rate rapidly increases you know the danger is on the rise.

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